Archive: Walmart's GoBank — Low-Cost Checking for the Unbanked

From the TI archives — originally published September 2014.

After years of failed attempts to break into banking — Walmart abandoned its bid for a federal bank charter in 2007 in the face of industry opposition — the retailer made its biggest move yet into financial services: a low-cost checking account, sold off the shelf at Walmart.

Announced September 23, 2014, the accounts were a partnership with Green Dot, the prepaid-card company, and were branded GoBank. They were available nationwide by the end of that October, open to nearly anyone over 18 who could pass an ID check — no ChexSystems-style screening of the kind banks use to reject customers.

The pitch was squarely aimed at the roughly 10 million U.S. households the FDIC estimated had no bank at all: $8.95 a month (waived with $500 or more in monthly direct deposits, which covered most Social Security recipients), no overdraft fees, no bounced-check fees, no minimum balance. For comparison, a basic Citibank checking account then charged $34 per overdraft and $12 for a returned check.

Walmart's financial-services push wasn't new — it had launched the Bluebird prepaid card with American Express in 2012 — but GoBank was the first full checking account. The timing was strategic too: with dollar stores like Dollar Tree and Family Dollar pulling away its core low-income shoppers, per NPD Group data, anything that brought those customers back through Walmart's doors made sense, as retail analyst Faye Landes noted at the time.

Twelve years on, the unbanked-account landscape has grown crowded — from Chime to Cash App — but GoBank was an early landmark: a retailer deciding the underserved deserved checking accounts without the trap fees.

Based on reporting in The New York Times.